Posts tagged leadership

One of the most troubling features of American life is how disconnected most elite, college-educated civilians are from peers in the military. My friend Michael Lindsay (Faith in the Halls of Power) has undertaken a major study of one of the most influential leadership development programs in the United States, the White House Fellows Program. Today on WashingtonPost.com he describes how a program like this provides an opportunity for civilian and military leaders to meet—with significant results.

Because the White House Fellowship draws younger leaders from many different fields--including business, the military, nonprofits, law, and academia, it provides one of the few professional settings where leaders from very different fields regularly work together and build collegial relations. This cross-pollination of leaders makes a huge difference over the long term. For instance, consider the program's impact on fellows' attitudes toward parts of the federal government.

We see that fellows with no military experience express significantly greater confidence in the military after spending a year with a classmate who has a military background, and for each additional class member with a military background, the non-military fellow's level of confidence rises. Levels of support for the military can rise from 54% to 81% among fellows, depending on how many classmates with military backgrounds were in a class. Most significant, that positive attitude toward the military remains over the course of the leader's life, whether that Fellowship contact happened last year or four decades ago.

I hadn't thought about it as such before, but in any English Bible translation, by far the majority of references to hypocrisy and hypocrites are made by Jesus himself, which strikes me as denouncing hypocrisy "from above" rather than—as is generally the case now, "from below."

One surprising truth about hypocrisy is its irrelevance: the fact that someone is a hypocrite does not mean that his or her position on an issue is false. Environmentalists who litter do not by doing so disprove the claims of environmentalism. Politicians who publicly oppose illegal immigration but privately employ illegal immigrants do not thereby prove that contesting illegal immigration is wrong. Even if every animal-rights activist is exposed as a covert meat eater, it still might be wrong to eat meat.

More generally, just because a person does not have the fortitude to live up to his or her own standards does not mean that such standards are not laudable and worth trying to meet. It therefore seems that charges of hypocrisy prove nothing about a topic. Why, then, are they so potent?

The answer is that such allegations summon emotional, and often unconscious, reactions to the argument that undermine it. Such indictments usually serve as attacks on the authority of their targets. Once the clout of an advocate is weakened, the stage is set for dismissal of the proponent’s position.

Another example of "if it isn't a colored nation-box on the world map, it doesn't exist" syndrome: a breakaway republic that's much less a basket case than the mother country. And some former refugees who are indeed making something of that corner of the world.

Slightly larger than England and Wales, Somaliland has enjoyed relative peace and prosperity and has held democratic elections, with a presidential vote scheduled for next year.

In a move to lure refugees home, the administration has introduced tax waivers on new investments to fuel more growth.

Despite its poverty, Somaliland and the region offer investment opportunities for those brave enough to return.

Half of Somaliland’s cabinet and lawmakers are former refugees who came back mainly from Europe and America. Former refugees have also become small-factory owners or created businesses, for example, in telecommunications.

Ibrahim has even bigger dreams: he wants to fashion future leaders. “We don’t have leaders in our country but we have managers. Our aim is to produce visionary leaders in future who can bring back hope and amalgamate our people. There is a huge appetite for such leadership and we hope to be the source,” he said.